In this week’s shower thoughts turned ~ extremely ~ off the cuff podcast recording, I blind react to my 2021 business plan document (that I wrote at the end of 2020). In this episode, you’ll learn how I plan for my ‘best year’ and laugh with me at some of the plans I had for 2021 that DEFINITELY didn’t happen.

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Connect me on LinkedIn: Lauren Loreto & follow with me on Instagram: @shesbusyaf @brandgoodtime

 

Hey guys. Welcome back to another episode of She’s Busy AF – this is officially episode 51, and I wanted to do something a little different. So first and foremost, hi, I’m Lauren Loreto, founder and lead brand strategist consultant at Brand Good Time. Today, I am going to pull up my 2021 planning document and read through it and react in real time.

So, okay – the reason I’m doing this, I officially launched my podcast one year ago, March 1st, 2021. I think it was like international women’s day. My podcast manager at the time was like, this is gonna be such a good idea. Like let’s launch your official podcast on women’s day. Like, there’s not a lot of female podcasters. And I was like, oh my God, that’s such a good idea. A year ago, my business was in a much different place – in fact, I go back into my episodes sometimes, like early ones, and I’m like, oh God. I kind of cringe a little bit because my beliefs have changed, but that is completely normal.

So anyways, without further ado, I wanna dive into this episode and I think it’s gonna be a little fun because it’s definitely off the cusp. I have nothing planned for this. I literally just hopped out of the shower, threw on some clothes and was like, you know what? Let’s do this. Best ideas come from the shower. All right, so let’s go ahead and dive in.

All right guys – little bit of a chaotic intro there, like I said. This is something that I was just in the shower and I was like, ooh, the baby’s asleep, the nanny doesn’t get here for like 20 minutes. I can probably sit and bang this out. I’m gonna pull up my 20, 21 planning document and laugh. No, I’m just kidding. But I just wanna like, see how much has changed and like talk about that, because business has changed and evolved. I have forgotten already what I had planned for 2021, because I was so heavy into planning 2022 and like the year was over and yes I reflected, but like again, time has passed. I’m a mom now, my mind’s moving a million miles a minute.

 

Let’s Get Started

I’m gonna kind of run through it, and also this might give you an idea of like how I plan for my years, which I know I’ve talked about in a previous episode. So kind of twofold. You get to like laugh along with me and learn how to plan your year – kind of cool. Okay. So I had written this document, let’s see – the last edit was January 13th, 2021. So that was like a little over a year ago. I still can’t believe we’re in 2022, like 2021 still feels like right there. So I reflected on what went right in 2020. I put that that’s when I launched a new business in September, and beat out my Q3 and Q4 numbers from the previous year where I had an employee and more of an agency format.

Oh that’s cool. Then I built an online and engaged community in those first few months – I sure did. And things look so different now. I was like, so into Instagram and relying on Instagram. Oh my gosh. I was selling this thing called the personalized AF content strategy. If you are one of the OG people who bought this – Hey, that is so awesome that like we’re still friends. I was such a different marketer at the time, I think, because we all know marketers evolve with trends and time and experience. Back then what I knew really, really well was content. I still integrate that into the strategies I do with my clients today, I still push content marketing really heavy, but it’s like, there’s so much of a bigger picture that I dive into. So that’s really interesting.

I left blank some areas I would change from this last year. So that’s interesting. But anyways, going into Ooh, interesting, okay. So I put my income number for 2020 and I planned for 2021. Okay – so let’s look at this. So the current products I said I was gonna offer for my best year. Brand intensives, Ooh, I kept those – those are still like my number one today. Personalized AF content strategy sessions – I dropped those. I was offering those for $97. Oof, that was so much work I did for $97. Um, not to say that 97 is too little, but I think, you know, my strategic mind and my experience like do not match that price tag.

Okay, cool. So I said, I want do a passive project of some sort. Can we all laugh about passive? As we know, passive work does not necessarily mean passive or passive income does not mean passive work. What I mean by that is like, we all want to have a “passive product”, we can make money in our sleep. But you still have to be actively promoting it in some way. Like it doesn’t just sit there and sell itself. It really doesn’t, unless you’re like Amy Porterfield and even then, I’m pretty sure that she has to do some sort of like ad campaign on the back end and then that needs to be optimized. So keep that in mind.

Okay, and brand management. So my thought of this was like, at the time I had three big consulting clients. I still have those consulting clients. But I moved them more into consulting in terms of not as much management of their brand, but more like consulting and strategy and like pushing them forward, not just like managing and staying the same. So I would say that’s evolved into consulting and strategy.

“What new products will I create to support my best year?” Which is what I put – oh, I said I was going to launch the mastermind twice, launched it once, epic fail, will never launch a mastermind again. In fact, this is where I began to hate masterminds. Masterminds are very silly in my mind. I think that they can be really, really good early on. I also think, and actually did a whole episode on this, on why you shouldn’t join a mastermind. I also think like, they’re really good if you are a late stage entrepreneur raking in cash, wanting to get in the room with like crazy minded individuals, but there’s so much other foundational work that needs to happen before you join a mastermind. I said it I’m moving on.

 

Overall 2021 Vision

So my overall vision for 2021 was to grow a small team, make a huge impact in at least 50 entrepreneurs’ lives. Okay! So I can definitely say I did that. Cool Lauren, we were aligned there. 2020 Lauren and 2021 Lauren were in line. So next goal question written down, I had “On December 31st, 2021, If I were to write out a list of accomplishments over the past year, what would I say?” “Beat out my sales goal.” Okay. I did do that. “Impacted over 50 entrepreneurs lives”, did that and “launched a successful mastermind.” I did not do that. Again, back to like beliefs and things changing – that was one that did not stick.

Okay, next. “What habits do I need to start to get me on that end goal?” So I said, “Being even more consistent and staying ahead of launch plans”, I did stay ahead of launch plans. And honestly I got exhausted by launching and I’m so glad I’m over that now, oh man. I have so much I could say in that one little bit I’m not. So we’re moving on.

Okay – “Hiring a graphic designer and team to help.” I did not expand my team in the way I thought I was going to, I expanded it in much different ways. So that definitely changed, and that’s really interesting to me. And then yeah, I did not hit my list building goal either. So I had put here that I was gonna have a list building goal of 500. I think I’m at about like 250, but let me just tell you – as a marketer, I spend a lot more time on my client’s businesses. A LOT more time, instead of growing my own. That’s actually a big goal I have for this year is to grow like crazy. My list, I’m saying it, I’m putting it out there, guys. Your email list is your best friend – nurture that thing.

But you know what I did do? You know what I did do that I’m really proud of? I think I only missed like three weeks of podcast recording. And at the time I wrote this, I did not know I was going to be launching a podcast. So it’s the other thing – is like your ideas come and go, they’ve come to you. They flow through you, and they can replace some of your goals that you’ve had, or some of the planning that you did. I think it came to me because it was like, it was presented to me that it was something that was going to be more accessible than I thought. I was like, boom, let’s do this. So since I launched my podcast, I think I’ve missed maybe three weeks total – I’ve published an episode every single week, if not twice a week. And I’ve kept on top of it.

I’ve made time for it. I’m literally sitting on my bedroom floor while the baby’s taking a nap while I’m waiting on the nanny to get here recording an episode. Like I did not make excuses – except for like when I first had the baby, which I think everyone can understand. But even then, like I had planned so far ahead. So you know what I am proud of myself for that consistency is huge. Especially when it comes to marketing, pick one thing you’re gonna master and never, ever, ever fall in consistency on. Be proud of yourself when a year has rolled around because it’s literally been a year since I launched my podcast. Wow. I am proud of myself. So yeah.

So this was just a very quicky-quick little episode I wanted to do, again, shower thoughts who knows if this was actually a good idea. No, I’m just kidding. This was a great idea. It’s really, it’s really, really cool to document. Not Just cool, but it’s important to document where you wanna be – visualize that and then go back and reflect on it. And I don’t, I didn’t do that enough. Let’s see – I planned for this year late last year, like in October, but I did not revisit it this January to see like, okay, like I didn’t revisit 20, 21 plans to say like, oh wow. That’s how 2021 ended, because I had a baby in November. So then when I circled back around, I was like, nope, straight into 2022. Gotta keep going. Gotta keep planning.

 

My Yearly Reflection Structure

So yeah, I would say it’s so important document. Here’s just kind like the structure of this too, is at the end of 2020, I did a reflection. So “what went right in 2020?” “What were some things I would change?” “What are actions I should have done I didn’t get around to?” Then I looked at my numbers. So things like, “What generated the most leads?” “What was my cash income?” “What was my best income month?” “What was my lowest income month?” This will tell you trends, and you can see year over year, what happened?

Then I did my yearly goals for 2021. “What does cashflow look like?” “What current products will I continue to offer?” “What new products will I offer?” “What’s my overall vision?” “What are the accomplishments I want say that I had, and what habits do I need to do to get me on that end goal?” And then I broke out everything by quarters. And I did that again this year and every year I enhanced this, I get a little bit better in how I process it. I can say that that is reflected in my income goals. It’s reflected in my expenses and my spending.

I also look at budget with an accountant or a tax strategist, trust me. But yeah, I’m stoked. Not only that this podcast has been launched for a year now, but that I’m going on my, I think, seventh year of business? Eighth year of business? You know, early on I had a full-time job and I’ve been doing this independently full-time for the last three years, which is crazy. So here you go. Keep going. You can do anything you set your mind to, insert other cliche quotes here. I’m gonna stop rambling now. So I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you did, please shoot me a message on Instagram at Brand Good Time, or screenshot this and post it to your stories. Show me that you love my rambling. And yeah, I’m really excited. The next few episodes are gonna be pretty awesome.

We have some more guests coming on and the next episode’s a guest episode, but then I’m gonna be sharing how I went to this networking event and I was asked to speak at it and it resonated really well. So if you’re a mama or a mama to be, and you wanna know like if balancing is truly possible, I’m going talk about all about that in that episode. But anyways, I will see you on the next episode of She’s Busy AF, thanks for tuning in, have an awesome day!